The firm, temporarily based at the Tech Brewery incubator on Jones Drive in Ann Arbor, is said to be close to announcing that it has raised $1 million in seed financing from venture capitalists throughout the country.

The money will support the development of software to improve the
security of the purchases from digital devices like smart phones.

Scio has been quietly developing its technology and raising money for about a year since Song, a serial entrepreneur and tech community organizer, ended a brief stint at Barracuda Networks'
Ann Arbor office last summer. The specifics of its technology and
business model are still unclear, although some details are trickling
out.

"Scio’s TrustedPath is the simplest and safest way to secure
any Internet transaction," the company says on its Web site.
"TrustedPath leverages consumers’ existing mobile devices for strong,
usable, risk-adaptive secondary authentication, backed by a secure
cloud-hosted service."

Song, who was not available for comment this morning, previously
told AnnArbor.com that he was also investing his personal money in the
company.

True Ventures said in a blog post that Scio is aiming to improve technology for an industry "riddled with complex and expensive solutions."

"At True, we see a new wave of infrastructure solutions that are
taking advantage of the dramatic changes in the data center itself, the
exponential growth in data, and the proliferation of web and mobile
apps," the VC firm said.

Song, who founded tech community group A2 Geeks, said in a Web post in March that Scio's first customers would be in banking and health care.

Local tech industry observers have been closely watching Song's next
move after he said a year ago that he was leaving Barracuda to start his own company.